Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T05:38:24.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Access to Protection: Domestic Institutions and Trade Policy in Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2007

Sean D. Ehrlich
Sean D. Ehrlich
Affiliation:
Florida State University, sehrlich@mailer.fsu.edu
Get access

Abstract

Previous institutional explanations of trade policy have focused on the role of proportional representation on the promotion of free trade. This explanation generates numerous unsolved anomalies and provides limited guidance in explaining the difference between proportional representation countries and between majoritarian countries as well as within-country variation in trade policy. This article introduces a more general institutional theory that argues that the number of access points provided by institutions is the crucial institutional feature, as increasing the number of access points makes lobbying less costly, which benefits protectionists. From this, I hypothesize that the number of parties in government, the number of electoral districts, the nature of the vote, and other such institutions affect the level of protection and that, once these factors are controlled for, proportional representation has no impact on trade policy. I test this theory on tariff data in the post–World War II developed democracies and find broad support for these hypotheses.This article was previously presented at the 2004 Annual Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association. I would like to thank Alan Deardorff, Rob Franzese, Matt Golder, Mike Hanmer, Jude Hays, Cherie Maestas, Corrine McConnaughy, Will Moore, James D. Morrow, Won-Ho Park, and Jeff Staton for advice and comments and Yoshi Ono for excellent research assistance. All errors, of course, remain my own.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , July 2007 , pp. 571 - 605
Copyright
© 2007 The IO Foundation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Achen, Christopher H. 2000. Why Lagged Dependent Variables Can Suppress the Explanatory Power of Other Independent Variables. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Alt, James E., and Michael Gilligan. 1994. The Political Economy of Trading States: Factor Specificity, Collective Action Problems, and Domestic Political Institutions. Journal of Political Philosophy 2 (2):165–92.Google Scholar
Bailey, Michael, Judith Goldstein, and Barry R. Weingast. 1997. The Institutional Roots of American Trade Policy: Politics, Coalitions, and International Trade. World Politics 49 (3):309–38.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel. 1991. Comparing Dynamic Specification: The Case of Presidential Approval. Political Analysis 3 (1):51–87.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, and Jonathan N. Katz. 1995. What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data. American Journal of Political Science 89 (3):634–47.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles. 1999. Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies. American Political Science Review 93 (3):609–24.Google Scholar
Bowler, Shaun, David M. Farrell, and Richard S. Katz, eds. 1999. Party Discipline and Parliamentary Government. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Carey, John M. 2004. The Legislative Voting Project. Carey Data Archive. 〈http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jcarey/dataarchive.htm〉
De Boef, Suzanna. 2000. Modeling Equilibrium Relationships: Error Correction Models with Strongly Autoregressive Data. Political Analysis 9 (1):78–94.Google Scholar
De Boef, Suzanna, and Jim Granato. 1999. Testing for Cointegration with Near-Integrated Data. Political Analysis 8 (1):99–117.Google Scholar
De Boef, Suzanna, and Luke Keele. 2004. Not Just for Cointegration: Error Correction Models with Stationary Data. Unpublished manuscript, Oxford University, Oxford, England.
Drope, Jeffrey M., and Wendy L. Hansen. 2004. Purchasing Protection? The Effect of Political Spending on U.S. Trade Policy. Political Research Quarterly 57 (1):27–37.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Sean D. 2005. Access to Protection: Democratic Institutions, Interest Group Politics, and International Trade Policy. Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Franzese, Robert J., Jr. 2002. Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gilligan, Michael J. 1997. Empowering Exporters: Reciprocity, Delegation, and Collective Action in American Trade Policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Goldstein, Judith, and Lisa L. Martin. 2000. Legalization, Trade Liberalization, and Domestic Politics: A Cautionary Note. International Organization 54 (3):603–32.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. 2000. Econometric Analysis. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Grossman, Gene M., and Elhannan Helpman. 1994. Protection for Sale. American Economic Review 84 (4):833–50.Google Scholar
Grossman, Gene M., and Elhannan Helpman. 2002. Interest Groups and Trade Policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Grossman, Gene M., and Elhannan Helpman. 2004. A Protectionist Bias in Majoritarian Politics. NBER Working Paper 11014. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Henisz, Witold J., and Edward D. Mansfield. 2006. Votes and Vetoes: The Political Determinants of Commercial Openness. International Studies Quarterly 50 (1):189–212.Google Scholar
Hall, Richard L. 1996. Participation in Congress. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Hiscox, Michael J. 1999. The Magic Bullet? The RTAA, Institutional Reform, and Trade Liberalization. International Organization 53 (4):669–98.Google Scholar
Hiscox, Michael J. 2002. International Trade and Political Conflict: Commerce, Coalitions, and Mobility. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Katzenstein, Peter. 1985. Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Kennedy, Peter. 1998. A Guide to Econometrics. 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Kono, Daniel Y. 2006. Optimal Obfuscation: Democracy and Trade Policy Transparency. American Political Science Review 100 (3):369–84.Google Scholar
Lee, Jong-Wha, and Phillip Swagel. 1997. Trade Barriers and Trade Flows Across Countries and Industries. Review of Economics and Statistics 79 (3):372–82.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945–1990. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lijphart, Arend. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Lohmann, Susanne, and Sharyn O'Halloran. 1994. Divided Government and U.S. Trade Policy. International Organization 48 (4):595–32.Google Scholar
Magee, Stephen P., William A. Brock, and Leslie Young. 1989. Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mansfield, Edward D., and Marc L. Busch. 1995. The Political Economy of Nontariff Barriers: A Cross-National Analysis. International Organization 49 (4):723–49.Google Scholar
Mayer, Wolfgang. 1984. Endogenous Tariff Formation. American Economic Review 74 (5):970–85.Google Scholar
McGillivray, Fiona. 1997. Party Discipline as a Determinant of Endogenous Tariff Formation. American Journal of Political Science 41 (2):584–607.Google Scholar
McGillivray, Fiona. 2004. Privileging Industry: The Comparative Politics and Trade and Industrial Policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Milner, Helen V. 1988. Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Milner, Helen V. 1999. The Political Economy of International Trade. Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1):91–114.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Brian R. 1998. International Historical Statistics. 3 Vols. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mukherjee, Bumba, Will H. Moore, Sergio Bejar, and Nicholas Charron. 2006. Time Horizons Matter: Coalition Governments, Replacement Risk and the Size of Government in 96 Countries, 1975–2000. Unpublished manuscript, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Neilson, Daniel L. 2003. Supplying Trade Reform: Political Institutions and Liberalization in Middle-Income Presidential Democracies. American Journal of Political Science 47 (3):470–91.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1972. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Rev. ed. New York: Schocken Books.
Persson, Torsten, and Guido Tabellini. 2000. Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Powell, G. Bingham, Jr. 1982. Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Ray, Edward John. 1981. The Determinants of Tariff and Nontariff Trade Restrictions in the United States. Journal of Political Economy 89 (1):105–21.Google Scholar
Ray, Edward John, and Howard P. Marvel. 1984. The Pattern of Protection in the Industrialized World. Review of Economics and Statistics 66 (3):452–58.Google Scholar
Rogowski, Ronald. 1987. Trade and the Variety of Democratic Institutions. International Organization 41 (2):203–23.Google Scholar
Seddon Wallack, Jessica, Alejandro Gaviria, Ugo Panizza, and Ernesto Stein. 2003. Political Particularism around the World. World Bank Economic Review 17 (1):133–34.Google Scholar
Trefler, Daniel. 1993. Trade Liberalization and the Theory of Endogenous Protection: An Econometric Study of U.S. Import Policy. Journal of Political Economy 101 (1):138–60.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George. 2002. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Tsebelis, George, and Jeannette Money. 1997. Bicameralism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Verdier, Daniel. 1994. Democracy and International Trade: Britain, France, and the United States, 1860–1990. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Weingast, Barry R., Kenneth A. Shepsle, and Christopher Johnsen. 1981. The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics. Journal of Political Economy 89 (4):642–64.Google Scholar